July 4, 2012

California Child Dips Into Granny’s Pot Cookies

A public service announcement to those of you living in Marijuana friendly states: If you are prescribed pot to help with whatever ailment you may experience, be sure to keep it out of reach of children. That´s the lesson a California grandmother learned last weekend as her 3-year old grandson was rushed to the hospital after the child´s family couldn´t wake him on Saturday morning.

According to The Press Enterprise, the grandmother has been diagnosed with cancer. Under her doctor´s recommendation, she uses medical marijuana to treat her pain and help her sleep at night. Rather than smoke her treatment, she had baked some of her prescription into a batch of cookies and stored them in a refrigerator in the family´s garage.

On Friday, the boy´s father asked his sister to watch the three-year old and his younger sibling while he was out. According to Sgt. Phil Gomez of the Murrieta Police Department, the father said he had noticed some crumbs on the ground in front of the garage refrigerator when he got home, but had assumed his mother had been eating the cookies earlier.

The boy was acting fine during the evening, but fell asleep around 5 pm Friday. The next morning, the family became concerned when the boy hadn´t woken up by 9:30. They tried to wake him, but were unable to. They noticed he was still breathing, and called the police around 10:30.

When the police arrived, the boy´s father mentioned that he had seen the cookie crumbs earlier that night and wondered if his son had somehow gotten into his grandmothers stash. The boy was admitted to the hospital for observation and was later released. The grandmother told police one silver-dollar sized cookie is enough to put her to sleep.

“No one knows how much he ate,” Sgt. Gomez said.

The family later assumed the boy had wandered into the garage through a side door on his way in the house after playing in the backyard. The family also said they weren´t aware the boy knew the refrigerator was in the garage, much less worry he would become hungry and go looking for a snack.

“It´s just kind of like the perfect storm,” Gomez said.

Though no one has been arrested, the incident is still under investigation. The Murrieta police have not released the names of the family members involved, though they could potentially face child endangerment charges should toxicology tests show any marijuana byproducts in the boy´s system.

The Riverside County child protective services were notified of the incident, Sgt. Gomez said. According to Murrieta Police, the boy´s family was very forthcoming and open about the incident and, with the notable exception of the cookie incident, the boy seemed to be very well cared for.

“It´s unfortunate that they didn´t take better steps to keep those cookies out of reach of the child,” Gomez said.

According to the Press Enterprise, the boy´s grandmother is particularly distraught over the situation and has promised police this mistake will never happen again.

“She claims she´s not going to make them ever again,” Sgt. Gomez told the Press Enterprise.